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Mark Carney sells £5.5m Hampstead home post-lockdown

Former Bank of England governors Hampstead home was sold for £5.5m. Photo: Aston Chase
Former Bank of England governors Hampstead home was sold for £5.5m. Photo: Aston Chase

Former Bank of England (BOE) governor Mark Carney has sold his London home for £5.5m ($7.1m), amid a post-lockdown rush in the real estate market.

The house went for asking price, and comes alongside £175m of sales agreed by estate agency Aston Chase since COVID-19 lockdown restrictions eased.

Carney stepped down in March after almost seven years in charge of Britain’s central bank, handing over the reins to Andrew Bailey.

The Canadian lived at the eight-bedroom home in north-west London, from 2015 until this year, according to estate agents Aston Chase.

The semi-detached, red-brick Victorian property is on a tree-lined street in a conservation area in South Hampstead. It boasts 4,950 square feet of interior space, and a back garden, measuring 81.3 feet. It has four storeys, as well as a basement for storage and a wine cellar.

Watch: Why are house prices rising during a recession?

Features include a sun room overlooking the garden, an Aga-style oven, parquet flooring, and a main bedroom suite arranged over two floors, including a walk-in dressing room. There is also a separate “staff/guest” studio, with a kitchenette.

Those who have opted to move over the past few months have generally been spurred by need for more space and outdoor areas, as people have shifted to working from home.

Usually Aston Chase sees transactions spread evenly between apartments and houses, however since lockdown house hunters have increasingly bought houses rather than flats.

Due to the current COVID-19 travel restrictions and absence of foreign buyers, 60% of recent sales activity has come from domestic buyers, the agency said.

A further 25% of sales have been generated by domiciled internationals living in the UK.

Mark Carney's former Hampstead home. Photo: Aston Chase
Mark Carney's former Hampstead home. Photo: Aston Chase

15% have come from long-distance overseas buyers, including a WhatsApp Facetime sale of a £7.35m house in Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood.

Rental transactions are also up year-on-year, with an increase from 34 leases secured April-October 2019, to 50 properties let in the same period this year.

The news comes alongside new data showing that in the first nine months of 2020, buyers from France held the largest share of international purchasers in the prime central London (PCL) property market, accounting for 11% of all transactions involving overseas buyers.

READ MORE: French replace Chinese as top international buyers of London property in 2020

This is a major shift away from the dominance of Chinese buyers, who racked up 8.3% of overseas purchases during the January to September period, according to data from estate agency Knight Frank. This is a decrease from their 15% share over the same period in 2019.

The living room. Photo: Aston Chase
The living room. Photo: Aston Chase

The proportion of UK buyers in the central London market accounted for about 59% of deals compared with 47% in the previous year.

Since lockdowns have eased, Aston Chase has also sold Lesley Clarke’s London home for £11.95m.

Watch: How to move out of the city